For all of the problems with Donald Trump, from a libertarian perspective he seems to have all of the right enemies. The most powerful and influential people who hate Donald Trump tend to be the worst people. The problem is that some of his enemies do not come right out and announce it. This is where Trump has a major problem.
Trump has some very good instincts, especially when it comes to politics. When he entered the presidential race in 2015, he ran a very unconventional campaign. Any typical campaign advisor would have advised him against doing and saying many of the things he did.
There were many times in 2015 and 2016 when various media pundits declared that some misstep or truth that Trump told was the end of his campaign. I think some of them sincerely meant it.
Trump told a crowd in South Carolina that Jeb Bush’s brother lied us into war in Iraq. Trump, referring to John McCain in Vietnam, said that real heroes don’t get shot down. Of course, there was the video tape of Trump talking like a college boy about women, and there were many times Trump insulted other people. Yet, his supporters didn’t care. In some cases, they actually liked it because they saw him as someone who wouldn’t back down and would go to bat for them. They would rather have a fighter who was on their side. In other words, they were tired of the same old Republicans.
So, there is no question Trump has some good political instincts. The problem for him is that his instincts are not good when it comes to assessing other people and whether they are on his side. It is easy when it comes to Nancy Pelosi or Rachel Maddow. It gets hard for him when it comes to people who don’t identify as leftists.
Turning on His Advocates
I have seen many cases where Trump has turned on people who are essentially in his corner. He turned on Steve Bannon at one point many years ago, even though Bannon has basically been an advocate for Trump the entire time.
When Candace Owens was talking about Trump’s support of vaccines, Trump turned on her, and she said he was quite rude to her the next time she saw him in person. Owens was actually expressing why Trump believed in vaccines. She said he came from an older school of thought where the older generation was led to believe that vaccines saved many lives and were almost always beneficial.
She was actually defending Trump when she said this because she was explaining why Trump differed on this issue from many people in his base. But because there was a disagreement, Trump took it as criticism and turned on Owens.
Let’s also remember in 2020 when Congress was ramming through trillions of dollars in spending because of COVID and the lockdowns. Thomas Massie questioned the whole thing and requested an actual vote in Congress. Trump went on the attack against Massie and suggested that he should be kicked out of office.
Massie was simply doing what no other member of Congress was doing. He was showing concern for the reckless spending. This is what contributed to the high price inflation that we see now. Massie wanted to look at what was being done and slow the whole thing down. And for this, Trump attacked him. Yet, Massie has generally shied away from directly attacking Trump and even defending him at times against his deep state enemies.
Trump seems to not understand that the people who are advocating for the American people and greater liberty are more his friends than anybody else, even if they don’t agree with Trump on many things.
I don’t agree with Trump on many things, but I will at least defend him against the craziness of the establishment. He did not tell his supporters to invade the Capitol on January 6th. He should not be prosecuted for the fake crimes they are making up against him now. It is obviously a coordinated effort to keep him from the presidency. There are many things that Trump has said and done that were taken out of context.
Maybe Trump should stop worrying every time someone has an honest disagreement with him or differs on a particular policy. Unfortunately, his ego gets in the way.
Not Recognizing His Enemies
The even bigger problem for Trump is that he doesn’t recognize many of his enemies and he actually puts them in a position to undermine him. We can look at all of the horrible choices for people he put in his administration. Maybe Trump feels like he has to play ball with the Republican establishment, but it gets to a point where it is ridiculous to surround yourself with people who hate you.
You can go down the list of names: Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Gina Haspel, Christopher Wray, and Bill Barr. The list goes on.
These are all evil people that he put in high positions of power. They used this power to undermine Trump while smiling at him and pretending to be on his side. Again, this is just bad instincts.
There are also other people like Lindsey Graham who sometimes pretend to be on Trump’s side while they oppose him in almost every way, particularly when it comes to foreign policy.
I don’t think Trump has learned anything from his first term in office. He will likely continue to put his enemies in positions of power. Instead of relying on people like Rand Paul and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom are not completely aligned with him, Trump will rely on his enemies just because they feed him the lines he wants to hear.
Trump is probably going to pick somebody bad as his running mate. Instead of someone half decent like Vivek or Tulsi Gabbard, Trump will pick some war hawk like Marco Rubio or Tim Scott. And then when that person backstabs him later on, he will act surprised.
Trump is so smart when it comes to some things, it almost seems impossible that he could be this dumb when it comes to knowing his friends from his enemies. Sometimes your best friends are the ones who tell the truth and don’t always pretend like they agree with you.